


Nerds

by facetiousfutz



Category: South Park
Genre: ... I can relate, At least that's how I'm choosing to interpret his attitude toward Feldspar, Canon Gay Relationship, Craig and Those Guys - Freeform, Fluff, Gundam Model Building, International Fanworks Day 2018, M/M, Nerdiness, Precious boyfriends, Robots, tfw when you play TFBW and find out Craig went through a Naruto phase
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 02:42:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13695213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facetiousfutz/pseuds/facetiousfutz
Summary: Craig doesn't really see himself as a nerd, but he totally is. Tweek is, too. There's no hiding it.Or, here's some shameless fluff about giddy boyfriends building Gundams together, because I can. It's cute.





	Nerds

Craig Tucker was mostly a closed door when it came to his fannish interests. At least with most people. He had his select group of friends to consume choice media with. He didn’t fit the image of a nerd, as far as he was concerned. He was certainly no Kevin Stoley. Heck, he kind of hated Star Wars, to be honest, but that was neither here, nor there. If anything, he rejected the idea that he might be even a touch nerdy. There were things he never would have discovered if it weren’t for the guys anyway. 

Terrence and Phillip, for one. That started with Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny in second grade, raving and laughing over swear words and farts on TV. Craig overheard them at lunch, not really friends with those guys at the time, but still. Being as nasty a little boy as any, swear words and farts were two of Craig’s favorite things. He watched Terrence and Phillip, and so did his sister, who was in pre-school at the time. It was the one and only interest they shared at the time. His parents weren’t too keen on that at first, and told Craig and Tricia that they were to, under no circumstances, act that way in school. Then they ignored what their children chose to view in their spare time anyway. Cool! 

He discovered Red Racer on his own. No one else watched it, except for Clyde. That’s how they became close friends. Clyde watched everything on TV, though. He didn’t really have any solid interests. He also didn’t have much to say about any of it, aside from “that was cool” and “yeah, that was hilarious!” 

Clyde was the reason Craig binge-watched Chinpokomon and a variety of action anime all throughout the third grade. His favorite one at the time featured a certain famous “ninja” whose catch phrase was “believe it!” but for some reason, as time went on, Craig became deeply ashamed and embarrassed by that show, and told Clyde to shove it whenever he brought up THOSE ninjas now. Clyde just shrugged and changed the subject. He didn’t understand Craig’s sudden disdain, but how hard was it to just drop it, really? 

This occurred right after Craig retired his Feldspar persona for good. Feldspar, who was supposed to be a cool thief, but was ultimately tainted by some fake anime ninja that shall not be named (as opposed to real ninjas, which were still cool). It was the only persona he had that embarrassed him. He would seriously even take up his sassy Metrosexual persona again, and still had the outfit to prove it. Heck, maybe he would do just that if Tweek’s family was serious about dragging him along to some packed Pride rally. He wondered if Tweek still had his matching outfit. That’d be kind of cool. Super gay, but they actually were super gay, so why not? It was totally allowed, and way better than uncool ninjas (again, not to be confused with cool ninjas.)

In any case, enough about uncool ninjas and being super gay. On to more important things: Robots! Craig and Token were so into robots. The very foundation of their friendship was robots, probably. Red Racer had robots, sure, but they weren’t very good robots. Token knew how to find shows with good robots. Most of them were from Japan, but that was OK. It was even OK if they had to read subtitles. Craig and Token were the only two boys in class with the patience to read subtitles in shows and movies. Tweek wasn’t even sold quite yet. Craig was lucky to have Token as a friend, especially when he needed a heaping helping of robots, which was often.

They binged on practically everything Token owned, regardless of what year it was from: Transformers, Gundam, Zoids, Evangelion, Voltron... you name it, Token had it. Some of the politics went over their heads, sure, and some of the voice acting was godawful. Some of the stories made absolutely no sense, and not every character was likable, but if Craig loved anything in the vast realm of fiction, it was robots. Man, Token was luckiest kind of nerd: the rich kind! He had so many robots. Sometimes he ordered two of the same robot and gave one to Craig. It was really nice of him. 

Craig’s very favorite thing in the realm of fiction was robots in space, though. Robots were so cool. Space was so cool. There was only one thing he didn’t like, though. When everyone decided Stick of Truth was lame and boring and they wanted to play super heroes instead, Craig grumbled when Token beat him to the punch, making himself into a sick robot as part of his super hero persona. Craig just had a nasty breakup with the not-so-ninja that was Feldspar, and a robot persona would have been so refreshingly different from that. But no, Token called it first, and Craig really had nothing to work with to set him apart from all the other guys, so he became some lame jerkface with super strength, a guinea pig, an 'S’ taped to his sweater, and a butthole boyfriend for a sidekick, who had elemental powers and totally betrayed him. After teaching him everything he knows even! Way to show your thanks, Tweek. 

While Craig was fuming over it at the base of Coon and Friends, Tweek joined Freedom Pals. He helped Token clear out the room that would become their “training” area. Amid various bits of debris, he found dozens of unopened boxes containing plastic model kits from Japan. Now, Tweek didn’t watch much robot anime, or any anime that wasn’t dubbed, honestly. Even then, he rarely could get into them. To Tweek, they were strange and hard to follow, but he never caught the first episode of any of them on TV, so that didn’t help. It also didn't help that there was an overwhelming selection of anime shows on streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. Where did he even begin? 

Even so, Tweek loved Legos, Minecraft, and model-building. And Craig loved robots. Even though they “broke up,” Tweek still took Token aside and asked where he could get these model kits, what they cost, what tools he'd need, things like that. 

“Say no more,” said Token, beaming at the twitchy blond. He gathered about ten kits from his collection, some glue, some paint pens, two of his mom's Emery boards, and two brand new nippers. He neatly placed all of these things in a large tote bag and said, “When you and Craig aren’t fighting anymore, build these together. It’s really fun.” 

“Who said anything about Craig?” Tweek grumbled, and Token gave him a look. The kind of snarky, all-knowing look that can only be described as “Who are you trying to kid?” In retrospect, it was kind of funny. 

The look on Craig’s face the evening Tweek broke out the model kits was priceless, too. 

“What? How...?” He was having some trouble picking up his jaw. 

“I just. I thought it could become kind of, you know. Our thing,” said Tweek. Craig liked robots. Tweek liked building models. It only made sense. 

“Y-yeah?” said Craig, not trying to seem too eager, but inside he was screaming and giddy. He knew Tweek got these from Token. He had an idea of when Tweek got them from Token, too, but that was neither here, nor there. It's not like they broke up for real. They were just fighting. Couples did that sometimes. 

So they got straight to work on their kits. Craig’s first choice was the 1/144 Scale Model Hyakuren of Iron-Blooded Orphans, and Tweek’s was the 1/144 Cherudim Gundam Saga Type.gbf. They were silent in the beginning, concentrating on instructions and minding the pieces they snipped from their plastic trees. Tweek was especially deliberate, given the generally shakiness of his hands. He had no fingernails with which to peel stickers either, so Craig had to help him. Neither of them had ever built a Gundam before, and Craig never dreamed of doing this with Tweek. Token and Clyde sure, but Tweek? He didn’t even know Tweek had anymore than the vaguest sense of Craig’s interest in robots. How did Tweek even know that Craig had been dying to do this for the past forever and a half? 

He’d spent so much time helping Tweek peel stickers and pick small pieces up off the floor that it took him over an hour just to finish the torso of Hyakuren. It also didn’t help that he paused often to play with Tweek’s ear and kiss him on the cheek. He was so happy. 

“I’m glad you like this so much,” said Tweek, giggling as his entire hairline was showered with kisses. 

“I like you more,” said Craig. “Robots are OK.” 

“Liar,” said Tweek, turning toward Craig and kissing him on the nose. “You’re a nerd and you know it.” 

“Yeah, well you’re gay.” 

“Yeah, hon? What’s your point?” 

“I dunno. What’s the point of saying I’m a nerd?” said Craig. 

“It’s as obvious as the fact that you’re gay,” said Tweek. “You don’t have to hide anything that you are.” 

“I know,” said Craig. “I'm not. I’m just not that vocal about it.” 

“You were pretty vocal about a certain ninja show awhile back,” said Tweek with a facetious grin on his face.

“OK. I’m only going to let that slide this once,” said Craig, leaning his forehead against Tweek’s. “But only because I like you.” 

“OK, nerd.” And they kissed and kissed again. Being so caught up in each other, it took them a whole week to finish their first models. It was important that they finish together, no matter how much Craig was itching to finish and move on to the next. After all, it was a lot of fun building his model with Tweek, no matter how distracted they were.


End file.
